Energy Use Changes the World
Source Institution: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Source Exhibit: David H. Koch Hall of Fossils - Deep Time
Source Url: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour/current-exhibits/deep-time-virtual-tour-fossil-list
Source Kind: interpretive_topic_or_panel
Use: research inspiration only; SAGE will write original interpretation
Dossier Status: scientifically_enriched_concept_room_10
Plain Language Explanation: Every society uses energy, but industrial societies gained access to enormous stores of ancient chemical energy by burning coal, oil and natural gas. Fossil fuels contain carbon that was stored in geological reservoirs over deep time. Burning them moves that carbon rapidly into the atmosphere. The resulting increase in greenhouse gases warms the climate, while ocean uptake of carbon dioxide changes seawater chemistry.
Evidence: Direct atmospheric measurements document rising carbon dioxide.; Carbon-cycle science identifies fossil-fuel combustion as a major modern transfer of geological carbon to the atmosphere.; Greenhouse gases trap outgoing heat and raise global temperature.; Ocean absorption of additional carbon dioxide lowers pH and changes carbonate chemistry.
Examples From Collection: Pecopteris strongii; Lepidostrobus sp.; Alethopteris serlii; Earlier Deep Time plant fossils connect biological carbon cycling to the geological history of carbon storage.
Energy Guard: The concept does not imply that all energy sources have the same carbon consequences. The specific carbon-cycle mechanism described here concerns combustion of fossil fuels.
Common Misconception: Modern fossil-fuel carbon is not newly created carbon. Combustion rapidly transfers carbon from long-term geological storage into the active atmosphere-ocean carbon cycle.
What Scientists Still Debate: The basic greenhouse and carbon-cycle mechanisms are well established. Research continues on the exact regional timing, feedbacks and ecological consequences of future change under different emissions pathways.
Sources: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/carbon-cycle.html; https://oceanacidification.noaa.gov/what-is-ocean-acidification/; https://www.epa.gov/climatechange-science/future-climate-change; https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/factsheets/david-h-koch-hall-fossils-deep-time; https://humanorigins.si.edu/research/age-humans-evolutionary-perspectives-anthropocene
Enrichment Method: SAGE original interpretive concept; natural Earth-system change separated from human-driven change; migration, body size, ecosystem reconstruction and human impacts tied to explicit evidence and uncertainty